So when will alternative energy become mainstream? Isn't it funny how the term "alternative" gets messed up as soon as something because really popular? I've noticed in the past ten years how the music we used to call "alternative music" because it was outside the mainstream is now super-popular but still called "alternative." I guess we don't think of those things when we're naming stuff.
Anyway, alternative energy just needs one reason to jump into popularity. The price of oil. If the price of oil goes up by 50%, most alternative energy sources will instantly become dirt-cheap in comparison. The price of something going up 50% in a short time seems unlikely, unless we're talking about oil, that is. Last summer it rose that much and then came back down again.
Are we running out of oil? Of course we'll never run out of oil. It will just get more expensive. The last drop of oil will never be used because a) it will be infinitely expensive or b) no one will care about oil anymore by that time. Humans are incredibly adaptive to crises like what we're about to face with oil shortage.
First we use up all the cheap oil, the stuff that is just lying around in pools and we can suck it up. Then we drill shallow wells and it comes up gushing. Then we go after the harder-to-get oil, like in Alaska, offshore, in the mountains. This costs a lot more, so the price keeps going up. Then we go after the tarsands, kind of underground pits where oil and sand is mixed together. This is a real pain to extract the oil, super expensive. Price keeps going up. Then we dig even deeper wells. Forget about Middle East crises, the price of oil will rise very quickly in the next five years just due to the cost of extraction.
The alternatives at the top of the heap are wind turbines, solar cells, geothermal ground-source heat pumps and hydrogen fuel cells. Using wind energy is about the same price as getting energy from the utility company today. If oil prices rise, wind will be cheaper. However, the costs are all up-front. You pay for the wind turbine, set it up, buy batteries to store the power when the wind dies down, etc. Then you basically live for free after paying all that money. You have to amortize those costs over the life of the turbine. If you do that, the price is the same. But to people who don't have the money to spend at the start, this equation doesn't work. Also, a friend of mine is buying a house and putting up a wind turbine but the banks won't provide financing for the whole package including the turbine because they don't understand what it does. And bankers tend to shy away from what they don't understand. So that's a problem too.
My guess is that alternative energy will continue to grow at its current rate of about 20% and then it will "boom" once oil prices rise above the "tipping point" due to whatever combination of Middle East craziness and increasing extraction costs.
Two things I have passion for are holistic healing and alternative energy. Can you tell???
11:17:04 PM 
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